


The Infinite Which Was Hid

by CopperBeech



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angry Crowley (Good Omens), Angst and Porn, Awkward First Times, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Coming Untouched, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley hates horses, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Forbidden Love, Hints of Snake Crowley, M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Pining, Plague, Porn with Feelings, References to Shakespeare, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:01:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27386866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: In 1603, there's a brief outbreak of plague in London. Heaven’s got a list of people who have to survive, and an angel on the ground they can assign to the job.A certain demon of his acquaintance has another kind of fever.He smells like spring rain under the sweat and cinnamon, and his hand’s cool where it suddenly lies over Crowley’s. “Are – Crowley, gracious, are all demons this hot? You don’t seem well at all, are you feverish? I suppose it can happen – I see now why you were so cross earlier – “They’ve never touched. They’ve caroused, taunted, bargained, quarrelled, greeted – but never touched. Not even when the fashion was a kiss on the lips or an embrace. As if the angel wouldn’t touch pitch, and Crowley wasn’t going to make him.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 181





	The Infinite Which Was Hid

**Author's Note:**

> Copper gets random with tenses and third-to-second-person switching again. Damn Thing In My Head.

_But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by printing in the infernal method by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid. –- Blake_

_Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:  
_ _It was the nightingale, and not the lark,  
_ _That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;_  
_Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:  
_ _Believe me, love, it was the nightingale._

_– Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene v_

Aziraphale's late.

That's given Crowley time to think, and that's never good. Time to order a second mug, too, and that lets his imagination off the tether, right when he knows he’d better stick it in a box and seal the box with every Hellish cantrip at his command and drop it off the stern of a ship into the deepest part of the ocean.

Demons have no business having imaginations. He'd intended nothing more than catching up on news (he tells himself, swilling fast to get the stuff over his tastebuds), maybe trading off a couple of assignments; but now he can feel his fangs aching at the root with the blasted bleeding _want._

Regard the thin, sour demon, brooding over his thin, sour ale as the light drops outside, thinking about an angel who’s thick and sweet and untouchable.

He’s such a bitch about the Arrangement. _We agreed to this but Crowley, I can’t possibly do what you want, not this time,_ prissy and offended until somehow _but this is the last time for this kind of thing_ he does it anyway, huffing _Don’t assume that because I do this, we’re on_ friendly _terms._ And then asking him to dine, or join him for another of those interminable entertainments, sharing a paper twist of candied nuts or the segments of an orange, licking drops of the juice abstractedly from the webs of his fingers ( _have some off mine)_ , praising the lead actor ( _look at me like that),_ wide-eyed with childish wonder at the human world that he can’t bless and enjoy enough.

Observe the scowling, baleful demon calling for another, feeling something more corrosive than bad drink eat at him from the inside.

He imagines (demons should never _imagine_ ) those blue eyes horrified, indignant at a completely unheard–of request, _I can’t possibly do what you want_ and then, after another drink and another, an evening’s slow persuasion, doing it anyway. Letting himself be wheedled. _It’s just another pleasure, angel, let’s enjoy ourselves like the humans do, just the way we’ve enjoyed this wine, that play. That’s all it is._

Only it wouldn’t be. Heaven knows it wouldn’t be.

Crowley could just _take_ him. He’s soft, spoiled with all the centuries of luxury and indulgence, which he seeks out like a cat finding the warmest spot in the house; even with his Celestial strength, he wouldn’t like to fight hard, and Crowley has the wiry ruthlessness of Hell. He’d whimper, and plead, and come anyway, and hate himself for it, and never utter a word to Heaven, knowing they’d only blame his negligence. Might even submit more readily the next time, there’d be a next time –

No. That's not how he wants it.

Except that a demon shouldn’t want _you’ve been my only friend_ and _Crowley, I have feelings for you_ and _I know this is wrong but I don’t want to be right._

Look at the big bad demon crying into his thin, sour ale.

_I don’t want him worn down. I don’t want him forced. I want him saying Crowley, we are each other’s as we are no one else’s. You know I want you. I can’t hold it in any longer. I know it’s reckless, but…_

Yep. That’ll happen. Have another mug of this bilge, maybe you’ll talk yourself into believing it could, get off imagining the words on his lips. Imagining all sorts of things on his lips. Thistle honey for you to lick. Moans as you touched him. Your own spend, glistening on that winsome Cupid’s bow. Believe in that and you’re a bigger fool than if you’d gone on believing in Heaven.

He’s had humans, it’s only business, but he knows how it’s done. He’s been the woman who's just come to an agreement, over there in the fireside corner, with someone who’ll probably miss his purse in the morning; he’s been the catamite that distracted a vassal prince from his liege's affairs, with suitably ruinous consequences. Whatever his orders required. He doesn’t tell the angel about _those_ temptations.

It’s a ramshackle tavern on the road north out of London, already far enough to be a stage for riders and carriages, but there’s been plague in the city and people aren’t travelling. There’s a few beds for hire upstairs and Crowley’s bespoken the last one. Maybe just so he can imagine (even though demons shouldn't _imagine_ ).

He’s looking into the bottom of the mug, considering another, when the light of the fire's joined by one that's paler, softer. Maybe only Crowley can see it. The angel, usually fond of his luxury, is wearing coarse clothes, carrying a rucksack, smelling of travel, but even his sweat is perfume. He’s flustered.

“I couldn’t believe it was _this_ place – it looks ready to fall down if someone slams a door, I'm sure the stable boy was drunk, and that _joint_ that’s roasting – I’m almost certain it’s horse – “

“Least one of ’em got what he deserved.”

“That's unbecoming, dear.” A disapproving little purse of his mouth, _don’t stare_. “In any event I was startled when the boy brought in your note.”

“Subbed in last-minute for Hastur. He usually does these places. Recoverin’ from a game of Fetch with a hellhound, seems. Just’s surprised to see you goin’ into that hovel.”

“Apparently my reputation preceded me, and a woman wanted me to look at her baby and – what are you having? I’ll get us something.”

He gets sack, a wine that’s meant to be sweet, only it’s as thin and sour as the ale and has the suspicious sparkle that means it’s probably been sophisticated with lime. Crowley drinks it anyway; it came from Aziraphale’s hand.

The angel’s travelling as a hedge-doctor – “I’m meant to be sure certain people survive the pestilence, run off my feet, but it’s burning itself out, only now they want me in Bruges next week – _Bruges!_ You _know_ how I get seasick – and then back here a week later, it’s absolutely nonsensical.”

“And they want me in bloody Scotland again,” mulls Crowley into his limey sherry. “Colder even's it is here, doesn't this bloody island _have_ a summer? Sowing division among the bishops. What's it about the sodding Scots that they can't stay tempted?”

“Flinty national character, dear. They're _hardened_ by those damp frigid winters.”

 _Dear._ It’s always _dear_ with Aziraphale. The word maddens him like an itch he can’t reach. “Chance’ve you takin’ that one? Easier for summun can step foot in a church.”

“I suppose. I’m already headed North and I have a horse. No cranky tummy, and it’ll make a change from this.” The rucksack chinks as he pulls it open, fishes out the Heavenly dispatch detailing the Bruges assignment, already stained with some sort of grease and smelling vaguely of cinnamon. “Herbs, aromatic oils, harmless little ointments. Of course I do the real healing with a blessing, and I may say, it’s taken a bit out of me.” He fusses with his clothes as if they were silk velvet instead of undyed hemp, sips the barely medicinal sack just as he’d sip wine from the Rhone valley. (There’d been a vineyard where, if you squinted, you could imagine they were back in Eden. He’d almost been brave enough then.) “And between you and me, you know, some of the people they want me to heal aren’t quite _nice,_ while the ones they told me were _strictly hands off_ – well, it doesn’t do to dwell on it.”

“Just do whatever Heaven tells you, no questions, eh.”

“It’s the nature of our work, Crowley. We – oh, we don’t always have to talk shop, you know. I – “

“What else’ve we got in common? You. Angel. Me. Demon. Never met before. Don’t know each other.”

“Oh, don’t take it to heart so – that was only if anyone was listening – I quite missed you at Will’s last, though between us it wasn’t one of his best. Or perhaps it’s just not the same without your company – ”

“Don’t need to suck up to me, angel. I’ll do Bruges.” It comes out sounding like a slap and Crowley’s not sure why.

Aziraphale looks hurt. Well, that’s something. It’s not the effect he’d ask for, but it’s an _effect._ That bitchy little purse of his lips is back, and Crowley wants to bite it and draw blood like the serpent he is, and then lavish the wounds with kisses like the desperately stupid lovesick demon he also is.

“My dear.” Another damned _dear._ “Have things been going badly? I know we’ve been out of touch, I’ve just been – so busy.”

“I’m a fucking _demon,_ Aziraphale. Things aren’t supposed to go well for me. Don’t they give you a little primer Upstairs? With an entry on _Damnation?_ Conditions, clauses? _State of damnation to continue in perpetuity? No paid holidays?”_

“You needn’t be so stroppy. Perhaps you oughtn’t to have another of those.”

Crowley’d had no intention of doing any such thing, but now he hails and waves and displays a coin.

“Oh, _really –_ you can be quite impossible, you know, Crowley.”

“And yet here I sit, possible as all Hell.” Crowley swings his feet onto the unoccupied bench at the end of the table and finishes his vile sherry in a gulp, coughs.

“If you’re going to be like this, dear, I might as well get a leg up on my journey." _Dear._ "Gabriel does like to pop in at inconvenient times, it wouldn’t do.”

Crowley waves distractedly, as if clearing a fug from the air, which, to be fair, is thick from the fire.

“Tell the horse I fucking hate it. On principle.”

* * *

The room’s barely that, more of a space under the eaves with a bed that’s one step up from a pallet and a table that won’t sit level. There’s a knock on the door as he tries to find a part of the mattress without a lump in it.

“The chamberpot’s clean, and I don’t need any more fleas,” he calls out. The door, which he’d sported, opens at a snap.

“Good, because I’ve neither. Only this. May I come in?”

He’s got a convincingly dusty bottle, and two glasses which look better than the tavern’s standards.

”Actually _good_ sherry sack which mine host miraculously found in the cellar when I came back and told him my horse had thrown a shoe. I asked after the gentleman I'd been drinking with earlier, and he said you'd bespoken a room and might be disposed to share -- ah, really I just didn’t want us to part angry. Sober up and we can enjoy something decent.”

Well, that would at least be some use for the chamberpot, and the sherry squeezed out of his bloodstream wouldn’t differ much from its usual contents.

”Wonder you bothered,” says Crowley. “En’t spurning demons all in a day’s work for your lot? _Thy heel shall crush his head,_ that kind of thing?”

“Oh my dear. After all this time, surely you don’t think that of me.”

“Can we give _my dear_ a rest? Everyone’s your _dear.”_

“In fact, no.” He pours into actual blown glass and offers. “I really oughtn’t to say this, but – you know, I cherish your society. I know we’re on opposite sides, but – “

“Yeah. Keep on remindin’ me.”

“ – sometimes I muse on the irony that if we weren’t, we might not have met at all – it almost hints at a part of the Great Plan – “

“Great pustulent mangled _bollocks_ to – “

He smells like spring rain under the sweat and cinnamon, and his hand’s cool where it suddenly lies over Crowley’s. “Are – Crowley, gracious, are all demons this _hot?_ You don’t seem well at all, are you _feverish?_ I suppose it can happen – I see now why you were so cross earlier – “

They’ve never touched. They’ve caroused, taunted, bargained, quarrelled, greeted – but never touched. Not even when the fashion was a kiss on the lips or an embrace. As if the angel wouldn’t touch pitch, and Crowley wasn’t going to make him. That must be it, because Aziraphale can’t have imagined how mere touch would thump blood into all the secret cavities of his demon corporation.

“Just _go – “_

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. You’re not right, and I think I’d better stay and look after you." Feeling for a pulse; playacting the travelling doctor's become habit (he's always leapt at the chance to act a part) -- fingertips lingering on Crowley's inner wrist where it's all vulnerability and nerve endings. "Don’t think I haven’t noticed how keenly you’ve looked after _me_ at times.”

He wasn’t supposed to notice. Except he was. He was supposed to notice Crowley _trying_ to make sure he wouldn’t notice. Something like that? So that he wouldn’t have to show gratitude to a _demon_ , because –

“That business in Siena. And the siege of – “

“What happened to _Gabriel likes to pop in?_ Tellin’ ’em how hard you thwarted me last time?”

"Ah. Gabriel. I've just sent up a rather longish report, embellished with some especially theatrical thwarting. That ought to occupy him for some time, it's just catnip to him."

“Said I wasn’t your _friend.”_

“Well, dear, for appearances’ sake – “

Look at the big, scary demon suddenly weeping drunkenly into an angel’s shoulder. Pretending he isn’t counting the seconds that the angel’s spent touching him, memorizing the shape of the other hand that comes to rest on the back of his neck.

“You’re hot as a forge and bone dry, but you’re _shivering -_ these human corporations. It’s hard to manage your own miracle when you feel this wretched, I’ve been there.” _I could manage fine, angel, just leave, let me touch myself while I’ve got your scent fresh –_ (he’s gulping it up, head turned away to hide the flicker of his ophidian tongue), _while I can still feel your hand on me and pretend._ _Before just touching you’s enough to make me –_

“I’m not sure an angelic miracle would be safe, but we can help you sweat this out – did they offer you a hot stone? It’s so chilly – let’s get you into bed – “

That does it, and Crowley’s arms go around him, scarecrow appendages full of Hellish need. They lock tight, trying to distract from the deep shudder going through him. He can feel his fangs growing cruelly sharp, denting his lip, the telltale scales flushing up his jaw and down his spine, the light of the single candle in the room growing brighter as his eyes become all serpent, as he clings harder and tries to stifle the sound in his throat.

Remark upon the wily, subtle demon, hoping frantically to conceal the fact that he’s just spent in his breeches like a human stripling.

The hand on the back of his neck lifts away, but not completely; becomes a single stroking fingertip that travels along one cheek, comes to rest over the snake tattoo.

“My dear. I did wonder.”

Apparently he hasn’t fooled Aziraphale for a second. _My dear._ Perhaps he can work off the humiliation in a century. No, probably two.

“You’d invited me here. Where there’s a roof. And a bed. Of sorts.” Still bitchy, picky, fussy. “And where we’re quite unremarkable, for the moment, and no one knows us, and we’ll be gone in the morning – “ _Go on, just say it, angel, busted for your most ham-fisted temptation –_

“Only then you were so cross with me, and then I thought perhaps you were really ill – ”

The stroking hasn’t stopped. Not _busted,_ apparently.

“Angels can sense love, you know.”

The hand’s found its way to his hair, moving with hypnotic slowness, and this grimy poky little room, full of drafts and fleas, feels like his fading memories of Heaven. Aziraphale says he wouldn’t know it nowadays. He’ll take this: spunk rapidly cooling in his pants, the bed a little rank in ways that no airing will ever expunge, what’s probably a rat scuttling behind the wainscoting.

“There’s such a deal of it around, even in such an imperfect world. It’s what gives me hope, you know. But I couldn’t help noticing, more and more, that I sensed it most when I was near you.”

The soft strong hands are at his shoulders now, pushing him back, and he resists, _just one more moment._

“And so I’m afraid I've decided to do something very foolish.”

Even like this, Crowley can’t help smiling. “More so than usual?”

“I believe so,” says Aziraphale in a suddenly cracking voice, and kisses him.

Tentative at first, then long and soft, the sweet taste of good sherry in his mouth, something to be delicately scented now that that first arousal’s spent. But it’s only regrouping, a corrosive distilled and concentrated over centuries; and now it’s Aziraphale humming with a fine tremor, _Aziraphale_ working to get the words out.

“We can’t be this to one another, you know. The Arrangement’s risky enough. But just – just the one night? Until sunup."

Crowley nods, not meeting his eyes. It's a meager way to utter the _yes yes yes_ that's battering to get out.

"Do you know, I’ve envied them, even with their short lives? They love so imperfectly, they show it so clumsily. But they do it.”

He brushes his lips against Crowley’s again, saying “Till daybreak,” and for once, Crowley’s glad that summer's passing.

* * *

You didn’t imagine it like this.

The bedclothes are scanty, and rough, barely holding warmth, so that at first you’re merely pressed together under the coarse sheet and thin coverlet, still in most of your clothing. Kissing’s a new exploration, the almost painful excitement that it provokes becoming a delicious torment. Hell’s business is lust and lechery; this is like drawing a portrait of Aziraphale on your own nerves and flesh, there to keep for as long as you live, built of his taste and smell and the singular way that _he_ tastes you back, the way you’ve seen him tasting plum cakes or marzipan or lavender honey. There’s one scent at the roots of his hair and another at the hollow of his throat, and the long sighing moan when your fangs brush it reminds you how thin the walls are, _shhhh,_ the sound trailing away into a hiss.

“You are,” he says in a husky whisper, “so frightfully hot,” and you know that’s Hell smouldering inside you, the breath that you sucked in from the burning sulphur and never blew all the way back out. He’s not afraid, and finds his way under the ridiculous layers of clothes you need in this marsh of an island. You miss Rome –– dining side by side on a couch, tunics and togas so invitingly loose, the mad risk of coming almost close enough to touch, and _there_ he is now, hand under the muslin shirt, knuckles brushing below your navel to shock a gasp out of you, fingertips traveling up to count your ribs.

The candle should be guttered, but something a little miraculous has happened, and it still lights his feathery curls. You’re not going to tell him how you watched the dropping sun angle off them, sitting in the gallery above him at the Globe, hearing only half the lines of a play that wasn’t one of the _funny ones._ He levers up to pull the shirt off you. “Beautiful,” he says, “you always were, I always wanted – “ He’s _snuffling_ over your chest, lips glancing off painfully tight little nipples, tracking along your throat to fasten on your mouth again, and you could spend the entire night like this, tongues caressing, bellies pressed together, rubbing lazily against each other through tenting breeches.

“She made you so perfectly,” muffled, because his open lips are travelling over your palm, “even Hell could only make you more perfect,” and then his hands are in the small of your back, pulling you hard against him: “oh, please, I do want you.” But there’s a strange shyness, you don’t quite dare to make the next thing happen, what if you're only ridiculous, or clumsy, or inept? (You were going to force him, make him plead for it, soft thing that he is.) The one thing that could make all the rest of it all right -- the freezing and burning of Hell, the despair of damnation, the Fall -- is right there, but desire’s left you paralyzed. All your temptations seem coarse and crude now, until finally that’s one of his hands drawing yours down below the generous curve of belly and pressing it to him.

“Dear,” he says, of course it’s _dear,_ “we’ve only got tonight. I don’t think you could do anything wrong.”

* * *

Imagine (demons shouldn’t _imagine_ ) a banquet of delicacies laid out before you. Before you know, it’ll be snatched away. You can’t savour all of them; which do you choose?

To linger over the broad pale nipples, softer than rosepetals, that beckon you when you work his shirt over his head? You could spend an hour brushing them with your lips, listening for the little whimpering sighs.

Perhaps thumbing the tip of what you freed from his breeches, spreading the sweet slickness, bringing it to your scent-drunk tongue to taste off your own fingers, _this is him, this is the distillation of him_. There could never be enough of doing that.

Except that it’s even more intoxicating to sup from the source, and when your divided tongue slides around him, plush here, glossy there, the musk of human sweat and angel longing all but stuns you. You could breathe it in forever.

Slide your long fingers under that warm cushion of bum, tug a little toward you to tell him he can press in, even if it makes you cough and gasp. He draws back a little _,_ and you make a wordless noise into the little thicket of springy white curls, pulling at him again to say _don’t stop, it’s perfect,_ and he bucks up off the sheet – when did this coarse hemp sheet become Rennes linen? – giving you an idea, and you lift away, the whine of need he utters making your own belly tighten.

The travelling healer’s rucksack of herbs and harmless unguents is still on the rickety, cracked table beside the bed – when did the lumpy straw become thick-stuffed horsehair under a luxurious featherbed? – and you don’t even look, a blind grab at a small pot with oilcloth tied over the mouth. The contents are slick and all but solid and smell faintly of almonds; it probably came dear. You’re careful with it, not to lose any, and you can tell he senses what you’re about to do, sucking in a soft breath and holding it. “Shhh, angel,” you say, though he’s said nothing, but he lifts again a little for you, and the yielding little pucker that meets your fingertip all but draws you in.

So he knows about this, how the sensation mingles dark transgression and decadence. You try to tell yourself that you don’t care where he learned it, as long as it’s _you_ , now, barely rocking your fingertip through the silk and constriction and heat inside him. _Satan,_ that’s made him hard, made him want, one plump hand is raking through your hair now, clenching the long elflocks, seeming uncertain whether to pull you against him or up and away. _Crowley, I can’t – I’m going to –_ You know what he’s going to do, you can feel everything tightening and becoming impossibly full, and you reach up blindly, fumbling for his hand, _it’s all right, let it happen,_ let the heat spill onto your tongue, the taste of flowers and salt and bitterness almost overwhelming your serpent senses. The clutching hand loosens, strokes you almost absently, teasing apart the tangled strands.

“You’re still burning,” he murmurs, and it’s true, your skin’s radiating dry heat, not fever but your mere nature. He clings halfheartedly to the ends of your hair as you kneel up, but you have to, you need to look at him by the light of the flickering candle, blond curls pressed out of their lie, lower lip dark and bitten, belly glistening where there’s still a slow trickle of pearly spend. He jumps and sucks a breath as you dip to lap it. You have him inside you now, the alchemy of this human corporation will make him part of your flesh, he’s yours.

“You,” he says faintly, as you pull yourself alongside him, bury your face in those cloudwisp curls, wanting all the scents and sensations of him at once. “My _dear._ Please. What do you want – “

“You,” comes your echo, spoken close to his ear in a voice deeper than you knew you had. A low quaver like the bottom string of these harpsichords they’ve invented.

“No, what can I _give_ you – “ Unspoken: _the night’s racing away_ ; but you want to lie here and soak in the warmth of his skin and the tickling of the thatch on his chest, the faint scent that’s entirely and only _him_ , the slowing beat of the unnecessary heart, the lingering taste of him on your tongue.

“Shh. Shhh.” But your body’s leading you, your damp hand tilting his head to you without an interval for thought, lips tracing his, _is this all right,_ and he opens to taste himself and send a shock of desire to harden you even more against his thigh.

When did Heaven learn to ravish Earthly senses like this? Don’t think, don’t _imagine,_ it’s not good for demons to imagine, just let him sculpt the planes and angles of your face with feathering lips, tongue the curve of your throat, press you back against the linen (when did this bed acquire pillows?). His weight’s pinning you, the soft little paunch still slick with spend for you to rock up against.

“Tell me,” he says. “Tell me what you want, dear. I won’t do anything you don’t want.”

“Anything,” you groan, “anything is what you can do," almost weeping with frustration as he lifts away and kneels up, wanting the warmth back – the room’s still cold, with that damnable English damp in every breath and crevice. He can tell, and pulls the linen sheet and the coverlet over his shoulders like an imperial robe (when did the coarse blanket become a heavy silk coverlet?), trapping his heat and yours together. He’s found that little jar you broached, and you catch a breath and hiss it out as he moves you against him with one hand, presses down, hesitates. Drops his head, as if it’s a prayer, saying “don’t worry, let me.” It’s all you can do to wait through the breathless easing and softening, a glide down and another suspended moment while he clenches around you, slowly wills himself open.

You’re half inside him and unmade with wanting and don’t dare do anything but _let him_. His head goes back, he snatches at your hands, asking you to prop him, and the low open-throated sound that comes out of him is like nothing you’ve ever heard, you’d give the soul that’s already lost anyway to trap it in a locket and wear it over your heart.

Your arm's over your face to mute the sounds _you’re_ making, the demon in you thinking with fierce delight _he can never say he didn’t want this now_ , feeling the greed in his movements. He’s always been like a child with whatever he craves, _these pears are luscious, have you ever tasted anything like these oysters? You have to touch this, they make it in the East from cocoons_. His backside’s lush against your thighs when you brace your feet on the featherbed, and he’s stiff again, the thickness bumping against your belly. You realize you’re going to leave something of yourself in him too, and the thought makes your fangs ache again with an unexpected rage – how _dare_ he make you need anything this much? – and you twist and pull yourself up against him (a human spine couldn’t move that way, but then you’re not); bite down into the meat of his shoulder hard, feeling him tighten, feeling him spend again.

There’s no gentleness left in you now, your nails are trying to become claws as you clutch the soft buttocks and push deep, rolling him to his back, deep again because you want to claim him, _mine now and no one else's._ Those thick thighs clamp around your flanks where the scales are rippling into being, hard and glossy. You can’t imagine what your face looks like as you spill into him, but he still gathers you tightly as your breath slows, lips moving over snake and human skin alike, cherishing the dwindling points of the wounding fangs.

There’s a double, bleeding bruise on his shoulder. You know he can heal the marks -- it’s what angels do -- but you’ll always know they’re there.

Cover them with two fingertips. “I’ve hurt you.”

“You," he says as he strokes the fading signatures of your nature, "could never hurt me” -- a thing you desperately wish you could believe.

When you come to yourself the serpent's asleep inside you, for the moment sated. You’re already kissing again, and decide wordlessly between you that it should be his hand on you and yours on him, so that you get there again, together, without ever breaking the kiss. He burrows his head into the crook between your neck and shoulder with a long sigh. You can barely hear the words.

“ _O lente, lente currite noctis equii.”_

_* * *_

This. This is what you wanted without knowing it, what desire was meant for: to be dissolved into this slow heartbeat of peace. This space where there’s nothing but the two of you together and the kind night, the distant whistle of wind in trees, now and again the faint piping of a bird. There’s never been this with a mortal, only business - Hell’s business, or your own, scratching the itch, imagining it was him (demons should never _imagine_ ), loathing yourself just a little more for it every time. Now it feels as if all the darkness has been mined out of you, the fire spent.

You know it’s brief, but just now it feels infinite.

You want it to go on till the end of the world.

* * *

“Are you sleeping?” Aziraphale’s been still, this quarter hour, the fingers that were roving randomly through Crowley’s hair finally falling to rest on his shoulder.

“I never sleep, dear.”

“Remember the day I ran into you near the harbour? Melcombe Regis, wasn’t it?”

“I think so. It all runs together a bit.”

“Wouldn’t it've been good to just stop there? Somewhere on the cliffs? Build a little cottage, like they do, watch the seasons change?””

“You know we can’t. We’ve got our jobs. And we’ll outlive anything we can build.”

The birdsong grows more insistent.

“And that’s a lark singing, though I can’t think what it's got to sing about in this woebegone hamlet --"

"Wrong play," murmurs Crowley, chuckling softly in spite of himself.

" -- I’ll have to go soon.”

“Nah, think it’s a nightingale. Stay a little longer.”

“No, it’s absolutely a lark, listen – oh, you _didn't,_ " and Crowley hears that delighted, beloved crinkle of the eyes more than he sees it, though, no, he _can_ see it, the candle a little less necessary than it was a few minutes ago. " _Romeo and Juliet_?"

“Got you there.”

“I thought you only liked the funny ones.”

“Sat through that one, for some reason." _Watching you from the gallery._ "Twice. Kept tryin’ to think up a better ending.” Crowley lifts the blunt broad fingertips to his lips. “Remind me to cook the lark next time. Didn’t Petronius serve the tongues?”

“My love. You know there can’t be a _next time_. If we carry on this way we're bound to get careless, and then -- well, it doesn't bear thinking about.”

Pale, undeniable light’s filtering through the oilcloth of the window.

“Give me an hour so I’ll be well away.” _So you won’t follow me,_ Crowley hears. “I’ll have to make a show of putting the horseshoe to rights at the smithy.”

His warmth stays in the sheets after he slides out, and Crowley pulls them tight, to keep it with him.

“I really couldn’t abide the bedclothes as they were,” says Aziraphale, noticing. “But we oughtn’t to leave anything that would be remarked on -- ” He makes to snap.

“I’ll do it,” Crowley interrupts. “After you – “

A soft touch on his hand – is this one the last? – and his face starts to get away from him.

“Please -- don't. I'm so grateful for this night. For your love.”

“Don’t be.” Demons aren’t supposed to feel this way: cut open and gutted, as though a part of them's been cored out; shouldn't need to fold double, hug their own bony shins, as if to guard what's left while they still can. “Not for love like this. It's angry, angel. Got points and edges. Teeth and claws. Wants to hurt _someone._ Her, for makin' us like this. Heaven for keepin' us apart. 'n' I'm afraid -- God forgive me, like there's any chance've _that --_ " The words won't come.

“I know.”

“Givin’ me this _onc_ e, takin’ it away – “

“My dear. I don't know what else we can do.“

He wonders if his tears are bitter on the angel’s lips, like brimstone. Clings for a last long moment.

“There’s _goin’_ to be a next time, angel. Even if the world has to be burned down and made over. And it’ll _be_ a soddin’ nightingale." A breath that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Better drink too. You wait.”

“Do you know, I think I will.”

* * *

The publican was building up the fire again, still only half awake, when Aziraphale came down the creaking staircase, and offered his departing guest a stirrup-cup. It was as vile and thin as the night before, but the man’s eyes widened as his customer dropped three times the price asked into his hand.

“Will your friend be wanting something, then?”

“Ah – we just struck a bargain to share lodging for the night. He’s not my friend. I don’t know him. We’ve never met.”

The next day Crowley fell in with a group of merchants and took passage down the Thames to meet a ship bound for Bruges. They didn’t cross paths again for a long time.

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> “O lente, lente currite noctis equi” is a line I’ve used before, but I reserve the right to steal from myself. It’s from Ovid and was quoted by Marlowe in Doctor Faustus – Ovid asking the horses of the night to run slowly while he’s with his lover, Faust knowing his soul will be forfeit to Hell at dawn. Aziraphale almost certainly read the first editions of both.
> 
> Melcombe Regis is modern Weymouth, tolerably close to the South Downs.
> 
> Kudos are kisses, shares are life, comments are candy that doesn't hurt your teeth! Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


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